Table of Contents

Federal Court Cases: Integrated Data Base, 2004 (ICPSR 4348)

Principal Investigator(s):
Federal Judicial Center

Summary:

The purpose of this data collection is to provide an official public record of the business of the federal courts. The data originate from district and appellate court offices throughout the United States. Information was obtained at two points in the life of a case: filing and termination. The termination data contain information on both filing and terminations, while the pending data contain only filing information.

The purpose of this data collection is to provide an official public record of the business of the federal courts. The data originate from district and appellate court offices throughout the United States. Information was obtained at two points in the life of a case: filing and termination. The termination data contain information on both filing and terminations, while the pending data contain only filing information.

Guidelines for Applying for Restricted Data

Before you begin an application you will need the following information to complete the form

General Requirements:

appointment at research institution; appointment must be under the jurisdiction of the receiving institution

degree requirements (possibly doctorate)

Must be submitted:

project description

IRB approval

approved security plan

roster of research and IT staff who can access or view the data or computer where data are hosted.

confidentiality pledges for all people on roster

Some require:

CV's

Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Any public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Starting with the year 2001, each year of data for Federal Court Cases is released by ICPSR as a separate study number.
Federal Court Cases data for the years 1970-2000 can be found in FEDERAL COURT CASES: INTEGRATED DATA BASE, 1970-2000 (ICPSR 8429).

Methodology

Time Method:
Cross-sectional

Data Source:

computerized court records

administrative records

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Created variable labels and/or value labels.

Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release: 2005-11-04

Version History:

2015-09-11 Six data files were created with docket numbers blanked for Parts 1, 3, and 5, and with docket numbers containing original values for Parts 2, 4, and 6.

2013-01-14 Docket numbers are 9-filled as requested by the PI.

2011-11-11 All parts are being moved to restricted access and will be available only using the restricted access procedures.

2006-03-17 Two additional data files were added
with SAS and SPSS setup files and an updated codebook for each.

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